Kado: the Right Answer – Being flawless is a flaw

Before I get into the negatives of this series, just know that I really like it. It’s a very interesting yet slow paced what if science fiction story. The world built around the anime is very interesting, completely reasonable and well thought out. It’s on my list of favorite shows from this season because it fills out so many of my mental science fiction checkmarks. Kado is yet another story about mankind’s first contact with an alien force beyond our comprehension, but the execution and the alien encounter that we see is very interesting and kind of fun. I should also mention that the show is cg instead of normal animation, but it is one of the few times that it doesn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out. Motion isn’t a necessity for a series like this, so there is barely anyway and any motion that happens feels natural. It also benefits from the CG in a lot of ways. If you like movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Arrival, then you will like this anime.

Here is where I start chipping away at some of the probems I can see for Kado in the future. Everything in the story seems heavily thought out. The alien we encounter in the opening has a human ambassador alongside him to make sure there isn’t any misunderstandings during negotiations, the prime minster of Japan is not a jack ass who immediately wants to fight, the science team performed very legitimate and understandable experiments in an attempt to understand the alien’s “ship”, and so many other things. What’s the problem with that? It’s like the anime is doing the thinking for the audience and because of that, it feels like the audience isn’t needed while watching it, but it freely allows the audience to speculate on what is going to happen next after the episode ends. Also, besides all the elements in the story, it doesn’t feel like Kado has its own personality. It just all seems incredibly obvious when the episode rolls on. There are quirks or details beyond surface level to differentiate it. Even the worse anime series do that at least. Kado most likely will not gain much of a following because of these inherent disadvantages built into the writing of this anime.

Another problem with Kado’s current level of reasonableness and quality is maintaining it. By having consistently making sense and having every single thought out and planned out. This anime has set up an insanely high standard of storytelling that it must work hard to maintain. That’s one of the problems of near perfection. There can be no slacking off by anyone on the production team. People giving it there 100% or more is an absolutely most or otherwise, the quality will fall and the anime won’t be as interesting. Even one single aspect change or not well thought out detail will show a drop in the story’s quality. That’s the level of quality we are talking about right now. That’s why I feel like the anime has a slow pace, because the creators are being incredibly meticulous with it. I don’t mind this choice, because there are a lot more bad things that can happen to an anime then a slow pace. I can tell there are some brains behind this anime, so I don’t mind it.

In closing, I’m going to talk about audience reaction again. I can easily compare this show to ACCA in a lot of ways. In fact, I can go as far as saying as Kado is this season’s ACCA. For one, each anime’ characters work in official offices in government. Yet another, both are incredibly slow. Third and final, neither show has played all of their cards in the beginning episodes. We may know a basic set up of the story and maybe some other ideas, but nothing is truly revealed yet. The audience reactions are similar as well. Many might see them as slow and boring and I can see why. In a world where people are energized by shows like My Hero Academia or freaked out by Attack on Titan, Kado and ACCA are the exact opposite. They hide a lot of what they are about and require the audience to pay attention to them with a magnifying glass. A completely different watch style that I can’t help but love, but many others might not like. I love watching shows for different reasons. Some for action and excitement and others that require your focus. Kado is incredibly interesting to me so far and I love it to death.

12 thoughts on “Kado: the Right Answer – Being flawless is a flaw”

I think you’ve really explained why I loved ACCA and I am loving KADO so far. Both have a degreee of common sense and reason to their plots that is seldom found as usually excitement and sensationalism are more highly valued in stories over reality (though it is interesting to talk about being realistic in a sci-fi story about a cube that appeared and swallowed a plane). But that is also the problem with both shows. They are interesting to discuss and think about where they are going next, and the characters are interesting in terms of how they react to certain situations, but the watching itself (while I find it quite entertaining) is not the most engaging for the vast majority of viewers and to be honest, I probably wouldn’t want any more shows in a single season paced like these as they are kind of fun because they are a bit different from the norm.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

i think i like shows like kado or acca because they’re more of a demonstration of how to approach the problem, rather than shoving a specific theme in your face. how do we go about investigating a potentially destabilizing coup in the government? how do we go about interacting with a completely new species that has far surpassed our level of technology? and i agree that they’re similar and that fans reacted to them in similar ways, but i think kado also gets extra disdain because of its visual style

This series has so far been a blast to watch. Yes it’s slow, but the storyline for it is so cool, that I am highly enjoying it so far. Really looking forward to where this will be going, and if it will maintain this level of quality. Great post ! 😀

I thought you were referring to Shindo being flawless (as a negotiator) with the title of the post, but turns out the topic was broader than that, haha.

I saw ACCA during its simulcast – I was neutral on it due to the majority of characters being named + not fleshed out to a better extent but that’s a nitpick I have as a writer. I wouldn’t go as far as saying Kado + ACCA are equal in the space they occupy (discussing this would involve spoilers though, so I might blog about it on my Tumblr courage-a-word-of-justice someday once Kado’s done), but they do fill very similar niches.

Kado’s always prompted lots of discussion, but that’s the way I like it (I liked Concrete Revolutio and SGRS, after all). Some people seem to think of Kado as spoonfeeding nationalism before they drop it, but I thought use of the UN made it fairly neutral. What are your thoughts on this?

There might be some nationalist kind of material in the show, but it’s never the primary focus. Japan’s government plays a role because they have to when dealing with negotiations between nations and the anistropic being and it never over steps it’s role in anyway.